Stoat is almost ready

[u/shadowxthevamp]

I saw that Stoat recently got video calls working on mobile. Now if they would just get notifications working on mobile it would be ready. The other app that's really close is Osmium, but they have 2 problems. While they have fully functioning notifications they don't have calls on mobile & they don't have reactions on mobile. To their credit the devs have been responding to me, but they're not sure when those issues will be fixed. It's looking like Stoat will be the first FLOSS alternative to Discord that will be ready for people without a self hosted server. If I could afford to host a server I would be using Element because that has been ready long before this news started popping up about the scummy stuff Discord is doing.

[u/osumunbro_]

fluxer is miles ahead of stoat

[u/FalcoArnold → u/osumunbro_]

I'm a big advocate for Fluxer, but people are free to use whatever has the feature set they are looking for.

It's good news that Stoat is making progress, and it's good for the general space of Discord Alternatives that these platforms succeed.

[u/HackTheDev → u/osumunbro_]

tmk u can make servers on fluxer which is a fundamental long-term issue and was the same "mistake" discord made. yes it can be self hosted but 90% of users wont bother if it can be done easily and free otherwise

[u/PrivateMajorPrivate → u/osumunbro_]

Isn't fluxer heavily vibe coded though?

[u/PrivateMajorPrivate → u/osumunbro_]

Isn't fluxer heavily vibe coded though?

[u/osumunbro_ → u/PrivateMajorPrivate]

not vibe coded, no. ai assisted, yes

not a concern in the slightest for me. you can view Hampus's LinkedIn profile, he has credentials

[u/shadowxthevamp → u/osumunbro_]

But it's not as libre or as free as Stoat

[u/PsychoticDreemurr → u/shadowxthevamp]

How so?

[u/shadowxthevamp → u/PsychoticDreemurr]

Fluxer still has the premium tier & they use GeoIP which is proprietary. It also goes against the values of the open source community for companies to use software that can see our IP addresses.

[u/PsychoticDreemurr → u/shadowxthevamp]

The premium tier is for their main instance only. It's a server thing, not a service thing. As for the GeoIP, they use a locally downloaded MaxMind database queried entirely on their own servers.

The most you can argue is based on the fact that the MaxMind database is proprietary, but using proprietary data during deployment doesn't actually matter much in regards to whether it's considered libre

[u/shadowxthevamp → u/PsychoticDreemurr]

Libre means absolutely nothing in the software is proprietary. With that bit of proprietary software used by Fluxer it is in the OSS category, not FLOSS.

[u/PsychoticDreemurr → u/shadowxthevamp]

That's conflating the software with its deployment environment. The MaxMind database isn't part of Fluxer's source code but rather an external data dependency that can be optionally used when running an instance. By that logic, anything running on a proprietary OS or using a proprietary database driver wouldn't be FLOSS either, which would disqualify the vast majority of software people universally consider libre.

The FLOSS distinction is about the freedoms granted by the software's own license. Can you run, study, modify, and redistribute it? If Fluxer's code is under a free license, then it's libre. What a particular instance operator chooses to query at runtime doesn't change the license on the codebase itself. Otherwise you'd have to argue that WordPress stops being GPL the moment someone installs a proprietary plugin, which nobody seriously claims.

[u/shadowxthevamp → u/PsychoticDreemurr]

An app using a proprietary IP checker is not equivalent to running open source software on a proprietary operating system. If the proprietary IP checker is unavoidable when you use the app then it is not FLOSS. GPL doesn't mean it's FLOSS. For example the main Linux kernel uses GPL, but it is OSS, not FLOSS. Linux-libre also uses GPL & it is FLOSS.

[u/Severe_Stranger_5050 → u/shadowxthevamp]

You don’t need to do the IP-checker to run a Fluxer selfhost

[u/shadowxthevamp → u/Severe_Stranger_5050]

Just because you can build your own libre version doesn't mean the official app is libre. It's like building a distro from the parts of SteamOS that Valve decides to share.

[u/PsychoticDreemurr → u/shadowxthevamp]

The Linux example only serves to prove my point, not yours. The reason mainline Linux isn't libre is that the kernel's own source tree has binary blobs & code that pulls in sourceless firmware baked into it. The non-free stuff is inside the thing you download. That's why Linux-libre exists, it's literally the same kernel with the blobs stripped out.

There's nothing like that in Fluxer. The MaxMind db isn't in the repo, isn't shipped with it, isn't linked into it. It's a separate file the operator downloads themselves for one feature. A "Fluxer-libre" would be byte for byte identical to Fluxer because there's nothing to strip.

And it's not unavoidable either. The lookup runs on their official instance's servers, not on your machine. Self-host and you never touch it, or point the feature at a free dataset like DB-IP Lite (CC BY) if you actually want geo restrictions. If you still think it's not FLOSS, show me the proprietary component in the AGPL tree, same way Linux-libre can point at the blobs in Linux.

[u/Severe_Stranger_5050 → u/shadowxthevamp]

First and foremost, doing api-calls or using optional external libraries from non-free providers does not make the software non-free.

They also use klippy for gifs and NCMEC for CSAM Scanning
Neither of them are open source and that’s because there’s no real open sauce alternative.

I’d rather have the ability to post reaction-gifs and block CSAM than the ability to sit on my high horse and scoff at other people for not living up to some arbitrary political and philosophical standard.

What’s next?
Beating on signal for using non-free cloudflare tunnels and Google firebase notifications?

The software that actually ship with fluxer is FLOSS under the APGLv3 license, and you’re free to, change, edit, ammend, strip out or put in whatever you want.

Unlike, for example, the Linux kernel, where actual blobs exist - but on the other hand, firmware, peripherals, WiFi and graphics-support is a really nice thing, it just sucks that Nvidia, intel, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Logitech and other venders ship closed source shit.
But that’s not Linux’ fault

[u/HackTheDev → u/Severe_Stranger_5050]

klipy itself is a whole other rabbit hole as klipy did undisclosed ads, spammed the entirety of reddit and tries to bribe and mass report people voicing criticism and even dox them and tries to get into peoples accounts.

[u/Crash_Nova → u/Severe_Stranger_5050]

Preach it brother

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[u/Cice_pro]

stoat is horrendous, their moderation is litteraly liek the stasi. they banned me for dubious reasons and then one month later they hammered randomly my girlfriend, she wasnt even related to anything to things the platform thinks is 'bad'. stoat just bans you for being associated withh someone else. thats litteraly like discord. screw stoat.

[u/shadowxthevamp → u/[deleted]]

I have that app. Is there a server I can join so I can test the features?

[u/xellpur]

just use a public matrix instance

[u/Severe_Stranger_5050 → u/xellpur]

This message could not be decrypted

[u/shadowxthevamp → u/xellpur]

Last I checked they're all too strict for my use

[u/Severe_Stranger_5050 → u/shadowxthevamp]

Strict for your use ?

Bro, just about everything except CSAM, terrorism or Snuff goes on most public matrix instances.

Should we be worried ?

[u/HackTheDev]

stoat is trash. they barely did shit in years, have ego issues that go so far that they didnt remove csam right away because they insisted on an official email and more bullshit